Dark Queen Read online

  I left the way I came in, but this time there was only Wrassler waiting. I stopped and shook his hand. He hugged me. I hugged back. Silent. Tears in his eyes. I stepped back and asked, “Del?”

  Wrassler shook his head. “Her mother took her back to the mountains. She was buried there, in the family plot.”

  I blinked away the tears. “Jodi? Did she ever say yes?”

  Wrassler beamed. “We’re planning a June wedding.”

  “Congratulations!” I hugged him hard. Holding him close, so I couldn’t see his face, I asked, “Leo?”

  “Buried in the Pellissier mausoleum, beneath the new moon, with the blood of his enemies poured upon him, with the potion of blood he created from the Caruso vial. Buried with all honors and glory due to his name.” Wrassler stopped, breathed in slowly. “He didn’t rise with the full moon.”

  My heart clenched. But . . . Leo had given part of himself to me when I tasted his blood. I wondered what would happen if . . . I reached out with my mind, with my skinwalker magic, calling to him. Leo? Are you there?

  But there was nothing. No answer. Not even a hint of a whisper of a breath of undeath. I shook my head and left HQ, Eli on my heels.

  I heard the lock clack closed as I got into the car. Laid back my head.

  Eli drove me to my freebie house. My house. My first home ever. I had the deed. I owned it outright. A fierce sense of possession washed over me. Then it rolled away like the surf on the island. I got out of the SUV and went inside. Alex rushed up and hugged me. I hugged him back, as if memorizing the way he felt against me, all bone and muscle and inches taller than when we first met. Eli gestured to him and the Kid stepped back.

  “We’ll catch up after dinner,” Alex said. “I’m in the middle of security for your new clan home.” I nodded and he stepped away.

  Dropping off my gear, I walked around the house looking things over. Eli stood in the middle of the living room, watching, waiting. He said nothing, as I noticed the missing wall and the exposed fireplace. I could smell paint and fresh building materials.

  I’d asked him once to see if he could find and restore the original fireplaces. This was my answer. While I hid on the island, he had found one, uncovered it, and repaired it, with a ceramic surround, a bronze facing, and a heavy Victorian-style mantel carved with curlicues and fleurs-de-lis. Beautifully restored. It was on the small wall between living room and kitchen. I’d never have thought about a fireplace there. I checked out the kitchen to see that we now had a copper farmhouse sink and commercial fridge, things Eli had been wanting. I checked out the laundry, which was unchanged, and followed him up the stairs. He had refinished the bathrooms, with sleek quartz countertops and new fixtures and fancy tile. My partner had been busy. I smiled at him to show I liked it.

  A smile lit up his face and he led me up the new narrow staircase to the third floor.

  It was amazing. The central space was vaulted and wood floored. The bedrooms in back—office spaces to make the housing and insurance companies happy—were finished. The bathroom was a tiny cubicle done up in marble and antique ceramic tiles.

  I finally spoke. “This is gorgeous.”

  Eli nodded, his face full of compassion. “Babe.”

  I held up my hand and shook my head.

  “But—”

  I shook my head again. “Edmund?” I asked. Ed. Leo’s heir. The vamp primo of the Dark Queen. Complicated. Just the way Leo wanted it.

  “In Paris,” Eli said. “As your emissary. Setting up a cabinet, establishing your power, sending out edicts in your name.”

  “Good. It’ll be easy for him to step in when I abdicate.” I walked away and down the stairs. Behind me I heard Eli talking on his cell, his tone frustrated.

  I spent the day in my bedroom, moving money around, writing e-mails and letters—on real paper with a pen. Predominantly my abdication as emperor of the EuroVamps, dated to the coming full moon. Eddie Boy could have it. Sending texts. Appointing people to positions of power. Choosing two vamps as temporary heirs to the European Mithrans—Grégoire as heir, and Katherine as second heir. Seemed simple enough. If they didn’t abdicate. Granting Ming of Glass status as Master of the City of Knoxville. Granting Lincoln Shaddock Master of the City of Asheville. This made sure Amy Lynn Brown was safe, in Clan Shaddock, protected by her now-powerful Blood Master. Trying to figure out how to ensure that Leo’s newest werelion cub fosters were safe, but not sure how to do that. I ended up leaving that for Edmund to determine.

  I also appointed the Youngers as coheirs of Clan Yellowrock. Gave them money and power to protect Molly and Big Evan and my godchildren.

  Kitssss, Beast whispered before falling silent again. All Beast’s kitssss. She had been oddly uncommunicative since I returned to my human form. I didn’t know what her relative silence meant, but she wasn’t missing; she was still there inside with me, so I was okay with her silence.

  Rereading the will I had signed months ago, a will that left trusts for my godchildren, for Molly and Evan, for the Youngers. Leaving everything else to the heirs of Clan Yellowrock. I wasn’t sure the office of Dark Queen could be passed on, but if it could, it would go to the entire NOLA witch coven. I left Bruiser all my magical items and Bitsa—the things that held me here and gave me power, and the one thing that spoke to me of freedom, my panhead bastard Harley.

  I sent a letter of intent to the B-twins, the Robere brothers, who were the lawyers of the NOLA vamps, to sue Raymond Micheika, the leader of all the weres on earth (and especially the leader of the African weres, the most politically powerful group). In the letter I accused Raymond of treachery against Americans, on American soil. I told the Roberes to proceed with legal papers in my name, with any charges and grievances they could think of, and asked them to send a copy of the paperwork to whatever legal department in the U.S. government would be most effective at keeping Raymond off U.S. soil. I signed it, the Dark Queen of the Mithrans and the Blood Master of Clan Yellowrock of New Orleans. I even signed papers for the house that had once been Rousseau Clan Home. It was big enough to be the Clan Home of Clan Yellowrock, the official clan residence, and it was actually two full-sized homes in one, perfect for clan business. And it had a pool. I toured a few more houses online while I was at it, and bought two more. Money wasn’t a problem. Not now. Not ever again. I talked to Bruiser on the phone, loving the sound of his voice, loving the fact that he loved me. His last words were, “Ed took the Learjet, so I’m flying commercial. I’ll be back from New York on the red-eye. Don’t wait up. I’ll crawl in beside you.”

  “I won’t wait up,” I promised.

  I checked the news for the last weeks to discover that there had been a number of grisly deaths on the full moon—homeless men slashed to death with knives, throats slit. The grindys had been at work, killing people bitten by the rogue wolves, the new, fledgling werewolves the rogue pack had created. The news of the insane serial killer had hit the airwaves like a tsunami and then disappeared when the killings stopped. If the dead had been wealthy, the press would still be going nuts over it, but since they were poor and largely unidentified, the press had drifted quickly to other stories. Typical, I thought cynically. As well as I could tell, the rogue pack were all dead too. I wasn’t sure why the grindys didn’t kill all the werewolves and be done with it rather than letting the Bighorn pack survive and thrive. Maybe it was the fact that they had a leader and they didn’t spread the were-taint. Maybe something else.

  While I worked I packed. Quietly. Surreptitiously. Weeding through the things I now owned. Finding that I ended up with just enough to fit in Bitsa’s saddlebags, which, oddly enough, was mostly just the clothes, boots, and weapons I used to travel with and a few of the smaller magical trinkets I wanted to keep.

  An hour before dusk, I walked out of my room and through the house, hearing Alex in the shower, smelling roast in the oven. I eased outside. I was weaponed
up. Dressed for the road and the cold weather. Riding leathers. Boots. I walked across the side porch.

  Ed’s fancy car was gone, just like so many things. I loaded Bitsa’s saddlebags. Opened the wrought-iron side gate with its fleur-de-lis scrollwork at the top. Straddled my bike. Sat there, staring out through the gate.

  “You not gonna say anything?” I asked.

  Laconically, Eli said, “Figured that was your job, since you’re the one running away from us.”

  I looked back. My partner was sitting in one of the rusted metal chairs we had picked up in a junk place somewhere, the kind with a frame made of a single length of metal pipe, and that rocked back and forth as the metal gave and returned to normal. But he wasn’t rocking. He was dressed in jeans and a zipped jacket. Boots. He looked good. Best brother I might ever have.

  “I’ll be back.” Liar, liar, pants on fire. I’ll be dead, I thought to myself. Didn’t say it aloud. “I need some time.”

  He nodded, that minuscule motion that was all Eli. He stood. “You’ll need these.” He stepped off the porch and walked to me. In his hand were two small white boxes. I opened the first one to see the medicine bag that had once belonged to my father. Symbol of the life I had lost, the violence I had found. “Ayatas says you should open it.”

  Instead, I closed the box and Eli gave me the other one. In the bottom of the box was a stack of business cards. New. The logo at the top was of a crown stabbed through with two stakes. Below that were two lines.

  JANE YELLOWROCK.

  HAVE STAKES, WILL TRAVEL.

  I smiled slightly and tucked a card into my jacket pocket. The boxes, I shoved into the saddlebag on top of my ammo and stakes. I tilted my head up at him. “I love you.”

  “I love you too, Babe.”

  “Tell Alex—” I stopped.

  “I’ll tell him,” Eli said softly.

  I rose up and dropped my weight down, kicking Bitsa to life. She spluttered for a while, so I pulled on my helmet. Adjusted the fit of the Benelli M4 so it didn’t pinch my butt. Looked up at Eli. His eyes were intense, calm, so . . . alive. I smiled. He smiled—a real smile full of joy, of family.

  I gave Bitsa some gas. Pulled along the two-rut drive and out onto the street. Gave her some more gas. And took off for I-59. And the road to home.

  EPILOGUE

  I stopped several times for gas, for fluids. No food. I couldn’t keep anything down. I was getting sick fast. The cancer Beast had told me about was taking over. I could feel hard knots in my abdomen. I just hoped I’d get back to Appalachia in time to shift into her, so she could return to her beloved mountains. I wasn’t sure we’d ever be able to be Jane again, but Beast could take care of herself.

  It was well after midnight when I stopped at a Hampton Inn and Suites off of 459, the loop around Birmingham, my butt tired, my body cold and weary. I paid for a room and took a long hot shower. Dressed in sweats. Climbed into bed. Couldn’t sleep. Belly hurting. The pain was kicking in.

  At three forty-two I heard the rotors of a helicopter, distinctive, familiar. I lay in the dark, tears in my eyes. I hadn’t wanted this. Hadn’t wanted to make anyone else hurt. But I’d paid with a credit card. Of course I had. All along the route—Cokes, coffee, gas. Hadn’t even thought about it. And there was the Kid. Probably mad as hell, cussing, probably drinking energy drinks as he traced my passage north.

  The knock sounded at my door. I got up. Stopped to look at myself in the mirror. I looked like crap. Well, I was dying. So there was that.

  I opened the door.

  Bruiser was leaning against the doorjamb. Dressed the way I’d first seen him the very first time in New Orleans. Dark slacks. Dress boots. Crisp shirt. Dark jacket. “Hiya,” I said.

  Bruiser stared at me, as if memorizing my eyes, my mouth. But when he spoke, his voice was without inflection. “Soul visited. She says you’re sick. She says you smell like cancer.”

  I took a slow breath. Watching him. “I’m dying. I’m guessing I have a few days. Two weeks at the most.”

  “You’re heading back to the mountains. To the estate you bought today. Yesterday,” he amended, his face giving nothing away. “You intend to shift to Beast and let her live out her natural life span.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “And you didn’t think to share that with any of the people who love you?”

  “I’d thought about it. A lot.” But I’d been alone most of my life. I had figured to end it that way. Not knowing what else to say, I shrugged.

  Bruiser moved into the room. I let him. Shut the door. Crossed my arms over my chest, knowing I looked defensive. Not able to care.

  Bruiser sat on the end of my bed, feet planted, legs splayed, hands clasped loosely between them. He looked at me. Silence and time and a weird sensation of space built between us, though neither of us moved. “Do you want to die?” he asked. When I didn’t answer, he said, “If you want to die, I’ll get on Grégoire’s Bell Huey and leave you to your business. But if you want to live, we have options. Well, one option.”

  I frowned at him. “I’m not doing chemo. My RNA and DNA are screwed up. I’ve seen how fast this stuff is growing. How aggressive it is. And I have a feeling chemo might kill what’s left of the healthy cells faster than the cancer.” The cancer was growing in a star-shaped pattern. The Vitruvian Man pattern of my magic. I pressed my middle, feeling the lower points of the star. Magic cancer. Go, me.

  “Chemo isn’t on the list.”

  “Onorio magic?”

  “Onorio magic kills and tames. My magic can’t heal. Not you. Not anyone.”

  I frowned harder. “So what’s your plan?”

  He shook his head. “Do you want to live or not?”

  Tears spilled over. I nodded, the motion jerky. “Yes.”

  “With me?”

  I nodded again.

  Bruiser’s smile appeared, so full of relief and joy that tears prickled at my lids. Gently he said, “Come live with me, and be my love, / And we will some new pleasures prove, / Of golden sands, and crystal brooks, / With silken lines, and silver hooks.” When I frowned harder he laughed and shook his head. Got up and opened the door.

  Outside, leaning against the wall opposite, stood Ayatas FireWind. His hair was loose, a silken wave, his body relaxed. “May I enter your house, e-igido?”

  I nodded. He entered and stood before me, his feet spread, his body rooted. “Where is the box Eli gave you before you left New Orleans? The box with our father’s medicine pouch in it.”

  I lifted the box from the dresser and gave it to him. I wouldn’t need it anymore. Dead people didn’t need mementoes of the past. They were, themselves, mementoes of the past.

  “Do you remember the note that said there was something in it if you ever needed it?” Aya asked.

  I nodded.

  “Did Eli Younger not tell you to open the pouch?”

  I nodded. “I didn’t.”

  “And do you remember the story I told about the soldier you stabbed on the Trail of Tears?”

  I nodded again.

  “Uni Lisi instructed me not to tell you this unless you needed to know, or if you asked. You didn’t ask. I would have told you had I known you were sick.” I watched my brother, his face calm, inscrutable as an Elder of the Tsalagi. “When you stabbed the soldier, he hit you very hard. Enough to break bone. To cause you to bleed great amounts of blood.” He opened the box and removed the medicine bag, handling it so carefully that the dry-rotted edges didn’t even dust away. “Uni Lisi put this in your father’s medicine bag that day.”

  Gently he pulled out a leaf-wrapped something, the leaf cracking and falling to the floor, desiccated into nothing. Inside was a short length of broken bone and three teeth, a canine, an incisor, and one molar. Whole and complete. Child’s teeth. I blinked. The memory came back to me, a vision of a fist risin
g to my face. Fast. Powerful. Violent. The sensation of pain exploding through me. A bone-breaking agony that tore through my jaw as the memory forced its way to the surface. My breathing sped up. Then the memory fell away, leaving a place of darkness where it had been only a moment before, bright and vivid. I didn’t speak, staring at the small bit of bone and teeth.

  “When you attacked the white man on the Trail of Tears, he hit you,” Aya said. “He knocked out your teeth. Broke out part of your jaw. Uni Lisi gathered it up and kept it, even after she forced you into the bobcat and sent you into the snow.” His golden eyes glinted at me. “They’re your teeth. It’s the only way she could think to convince you who you are. Who I am. She said that you’d remember. That you’d know.”

  I remembered, but . . . I also knew the depths of revenge and treachery. Uncertainly I asked, “You’re sure? It’s mine?”

  “That is what the Keeper of the Secrets of the Skinwalkers said.”

  I accepted the small, fractured length of bone and teeth, holding it on my outstretched hand. Holding a memento of the before times. A piece of myself.

  Bruiser asked, “Do you think there might be enough genetic material?”

  When I didn’t answer, Bruiser said, “Can you use the genes in these teeth to shift into a healed you?”

  I considered them. “I don’t know. I’d likely be five years old. If there was enough viable genetic material to find a pattern.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe you can merge the DNA with your own. Clean yours up.”

  I looked at Bruiser. And let a small smile onto my face.

  “Will you try?” he asked. “I have searched for you all of my life. I don’t want to lose you now.”

  “Yes,” I said softly. “I’ll try.”

  Relief flashed across his face, like the sun peeking between storm clouds, and quickly gone. “Good. Will you marry me? The Roberes will write up a binding prenuptial agreement to protect your holdings and your status as Dark Queen.”